


Breath

by cory_silver



Category: Battlestar Galactica (1978)
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-21
Updated: 2017-04-21
Packaged: 2018-10-22 07:15:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,618
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10692321
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cory_silver/pseuds/cory_silver
Summary: Episode tag for "War of the Gods".  Starbuck has nightmares.





	Breath

_Later, Starbuck would find it disturbing how he remembered that moment. The image of Apollo’s face in that instant remained in his mind as one of the most vivid and (what was troubling) most treasured images. He shouldn’t have been thinking of Apollo’s beauty in death, of how his hair fell around his face in soft curls as if it had been lovingly arranged. He shouldn’t have been noticing the grace of his friend’s long limbs as they lay limp against the rough ground. No breath stirred Apollo’s perfect lips, and the stab of pain and regret that shot through Starbuck left that moment exquisitely imprinted in his memory._

_The next few were a blur. Starbuck was shooting, shouting something with righteous, trembling rage, but nothing he did could affect their enemy. Sheba had pulled Apollo’s head into her lap and was stroking his hair. Starbuck was scooping Apollo into his arms, learning the meaning of the term “dead weight” as he struggled to keep the other man’s sprawling limbs contained. Sheba wasn’t much help. By the time they reached the top of the hill, Starbuck’s legs had gone numb. He wasn’t sure if it was from Apollo’s weight or from shock. At some point during the climb, Apollo’s forehead had dropped against Starbuck’s bare neck and the contact sent another shudder of grief through him._

Starbuck woke with a sharp but nearly silent intake of breath. Even as his eyes opened in the darkened barracks, he could almost feel the cooling skin of Apollo’s forehead pressing into the hollow between his neck and collar bone. Sleeping most of his childhood in rooms as populous as this one, Starbuck had learned to wake from nightmares quietly. He didn’t shout or gasp, and he certainly didn’t do anything as ridiculous as calling out Apollo’s name. He was fairly certain, as he slipped out into the hallway, that no one else’s sleep had been disturbed.

The Galactica knew no true day or night, but in deference to the patterns humans were accustomed to, one third of a full cycle had been selected to dim the lights in the corridors and release everyone from duty with the exception of a rotating skeleton crew. Consequently, there was almost no one awake to see Starbuck wandering the halls like a haunted man, dressed in his uniform pants and an undershirt. He had slipped on low civilian shoes, too tired and too mindful of noise to struggle with his boots. The hems of his uniform pants, never meant to show, flapped around his ankles.

He wasn’t surprised when he stopped in front of Apollo’s door. After all, he’d been here almost every sleep period for the last three sectons, since their return from the encounter with Count Iblis. Since Starbuck had staggered into the shuttle bearing Apollo’s lifeless body, and somehow landed on the flight deck of the Galactica with his living, breathing friend returned to him. He lifted his hand and brushed the door with his fingertips, not knocking. Never knocking.

Starbuck remembered one particularly kind and motherly woman at the orphanage who, on her nights of dorm duty, would quietly pause for a moment beside each child’s bed before leaving the room. He’d asked her why once, and she’d said she just needed to hear each of them breathing. Starbuck desperately wished that he could hear Apollo breathing from the hall.

* * *

The mechanical click of the lock releasing gave Starbuck only a moment’s warning that the door was about to open. It wasn’t even enough time to take a full step back. When the thin sheet of metal retreated into the wall, Apollo’s face was suddenly very close to his own.

“Starbuck!” Apollo jerked back, startled. “I thought I heard something… What are you doing here?” Apollo was bare-chested and dressed in loose sleep pants that rode low on his hips. He scrubbed a hand over his face and squinted blearily at his friend. The heat radiating from his body told of the warm bed he’d just abandoned.

Starbuck couldn’t speak for a moment, overwhelmed by the sudden excess of sensory evidence that Apollo was, indeed, alive. He stared openly at the other man for a few microns, taking in little movements that he’d never consciously been aware of before—Apollo’s shoulders rising and broadening slightly with each breath, the minute adjustments of muscle and bone beneath his skin as he shifted his weight. He realized he’d been focusing his gaze on Apollo’s bare torso, and forced his eyes up to his friend’s face, now looking slightly flushed and uncomfortable at the scrutiny.

“Starbuck…?”

“You were dead,” Starbuck said. It didn’t make any sense as an answer to Apollo’s question, but it was the only explanation he could give.

Apollo’s discomfort dissolved into an almost tender concern. He frowned as he took in Starbuck’s disheveled appearance. “You’re a mess,” he said gently. “Come inside.” When Starbuck didn’t move immediately, Apollo grasped his wrist and pulled him through the door.

Apollo’s quarters were relatively luxurious for the Galactica. The room they were standing in held a couch, a low table, and a couple of chairs on one side. The other side was taken up with basic cooking and refrigeration facilities. Three closed doors led to two small bedrooms and a private turboflush. Starbuck collapsed gratefully onto the couch, the exhaustion of three sleepless sectons finally crashing down on him.

Apollo settled into one of the chairs, fixing worried green eyes on Starbuck. “We talked about this before,” he said quietly. “I must have just been stunned. Why is it still bothering you so much?”

“You were not stunned.” Starbuck shook his head helplessly, looking away. “You don’t understand, because… because you don’t remember. I said we took your body back to the shuttle. I carried you. I carried you and I lay you down on the cot in the shuttle and… the whole thing was at least half a centare. You didn’t move. You didn’t breathe. You were going cold and stiff… I know what dead looks like, Apollo.” Starbuck clenched his hands around his knees to hide their shaking.

Keeping his eyes trained on his white knuckles, he ploughed on with the story, “The last thing I remember before we… lost time, was clearing the planet’s atmosphere on the shuttle. I was talking to Sheba and I said--” No. He wasn’t going to tell Apollo what he said, although in his own flights of fancy he allowed himself to imagine that someone or something had returned Apollo to him personally, because of the sacrifice he offered. Apollo made an encouraging noise.

“I don’t know. It doesn’t make any sense after that. I just know we came back here and you weren’t dead anymore.” He remembered vividly the surge of emotions that went through him when he shook off the vague, drugged feeling and turned around in the pilot’s chair to see Apollo sitting up on the cot looking equally dazed.

When Apollo said nothing, Starbuck added defensively, “Sheba would tell you the same thing. She saw it, too.” He didn’t feel like bringing Sheba into the conversation, but he knew how crazy his story sounded. He didn’t look up again until he felt Apollo’s hand close on his arm.

“I believe you.” Apollo’s voice was steady and earnest. “I don’t know how it’s possible, but I believe you. Nothing that happened while Count Iblis was with us made any sense. This is just one more of those things, I guess… But why didn’t you tell me how bad it was?”

Starbuck shrugged miserably, “I didn’t want to upset you.”

“So you just let it eat at you? I wish you would learn that you can tell me things.”

Not everything, Starbuck thought, studying Apollo’s profile, his longing rising up once again to have the kind of cathartic reunion Apollo and Sheba had in the shuttle. Sheba had jumped up from the co-pilot’s chair to embrace him, babbling incoherent relief. Starbuck, who had wanted nothing more than to do exactly that, had turned back to the console, blinked his eyes clear, and piloted the shuttle home. They’d shared nothing more than a heartfelt hand-clasp in the shuttle bay as Starbuck helped his friend rise shakily from the cot. Starbuck looked away again, afraid Apollo would be able to identify the emotion on his face.

“But the point is I’m alright now,” Apollo continued, the tenderness back in his voice. “How can I show you that everything’s alright now?” Apollo was moving as he spoke. Starbuck felt the couch cushion dip next to him and Apollo’s arms slip around him.

It was the middle of the sleep period. Starbuck was worn down and wrung out and Apollo wasn’t wearing a shirt. He didn’t stop to wonder what Apollo meant by the hug, just followed his instincts and turned blindly into the other man’s heat, finally allowing his body to take the comfort he needed so badly. He slid a hand up Apollo’s back in a light caress. By the time he had buried it in Apollo’s hair, he could feel Apollo stiffening with the realization that this wasn’t going exactly in the direction he expected.

“Starbuck?” Apollo pulled back without releasing him completely, green eyes seeking out blue ones questioningly.

“You were dead,” Starbuck whispered, barely louder than a breath. “Don’t ever do that to me again.”

Apollo’s lips parted slightly as if he were about to speak, but he stopped short of making a promise he probably couldn’t keep given the life they led. Instead, he turned his head just a few degrees and let his lips answer Starbuck’s fears in another way.


End file.
